


Stars fading but I linger on, still craving your kiss

by lisa6



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drug Abuse, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Everyone Is Alive, F/M, M/M, Political Animals AU, Slow Burn, niall lynch is an awful dad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 15:45:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19254232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisa6/pseuds/lisa6
Summary: Adam Parrish gets roped into spending time with Gansey's best friend since childhood, who happens to be the President's troubled son._______"We have just received news that Ronan N. Lynch, son of President Niall Lynch, has been taken to a Washington D.C. hospital after an apparent suicide attempt. He was admitted to the emergency room at 11:46 PM on November 28th. So far no information on his current condition has been released."





	Stars fading but I linger on, still craving your kiss

**Author's Note:**

> I love Political Animals and Sebastian Stan (<3) made me love his character so much that I had to give it a try. 
> 
> Please let me know what you think :) 
> 
> (Also, sorry if there are any grammar/spelling mistakes. I'm German so English isn't my mother tongue. If there are any, please let me know!)

_"We have just received news that Ronan N. Lynch, son of President Niall Lynch, has been taken to a Washington D.C. hospital after an apparent suicide attempt. He was admitted to the emergency room at 11:46 PM on November 28th. So far no information on his current condition has been released."_

***

"Remind me again why you want me there with you?" Adam Parrish asks, opening his small fridge and squinting inside; its light has been dead ever since Gansey hung out at Adam’s tiny apartment for the first time. It doesn’t help that, due to the fact that it’s well past midnight and an outstanding electricity bill, the entire apartment is dark apart from the pale silvery moonlight making its way through the small, filmy windows.

“You’re my best friend and I’d really appreciate the moral support.”

“Moral support?” Adam snorts, dark blue eyes gleaming. “We both know that’s bullshit.”

Gansey slumps down into a ramshackle chair. “It’s just a dinner.”

“It’s not _just a dinner_ when it’s held at the White House.” Adam sighs, straightens, and closes the fridge door still empty-handed; all he's found inside was a carton of spoiled milk and a bit of butter. Gansey tilts his head to the side.

“Want some pizza?” he asks, already fishing his iPhone out of his pants pocket and making a face when its bright display blinds him momentarily. “Nino’s still open, I believe.”

“No.”

“Come on. I’m hungry, too. I’ll pay this time, you the next.” He lifts his phone to his ear, raising his eyebrows. “Pepperoni okay for you?”

Adam shrugs his shoulders in resignation and leans against the kitchen counter. There are unopened letters strewn over it; he really ought to get rid of the idea that the bills will magically disappear if he doesn’t open them. Adam averts his eyes and busies himself shedding his jacket. If he was still back at home in Virginia, he’d be taking off a sweaty t-shirt instead. The weather is just one of many things that work differently in Washington, D.C.

“Thank you,” Gansey tells the person at the other end of the phone and hangs up. He looks slightly exhausted, the way he always does after talking to people. It’s strange to think of Gansey — gallant, rich, sophisticated, son of the Secretary of State and globetrotting Harvard law student — to be left drained by even the smallest of social interactions. The thought of him loosening his tie and removing his contact lenses after a long night full of stiff conversations and forced smiles makes Adam’s gut clench.

“Okay,” he says.

Gansey looks up, dropping his hands from where their palms had rubbed over his eyes. “'Okay'?”

“I’ll come with you.”

Gansey beams at him. “Really?”

“On one condition,” Adam says. “You won’t leave me alone with Madeleine Brault again.”

Gansey’s laugh is surprised and happy, bubbling out of him with the memory of Madeleine’s deplorable attempts at seduction. “You two would’ve made a nice couple.”

“Fuck off.”

Gansey laughs at Adam's grimace. “Okay, deal. I’ll keep her greedy hands away from you.”

“I mean it.”

“Yes, Adam. I promise.” His good mood ebbs away slowly, vanishing from the apartment as well as from his eyes and getting replaced by a hauntingly somber expression on his handsome face. “Thank you. I mean it. These past few months— it wasn’t… easy.”

Gansey ducks his head, uncomfortable with the worry obviously eating away at him, so Adam turns around to get two glasses and fill them with tap water. He pretends not to hear Gansey’s shaky inhale over the stream of water.

“He out of rehab yet?”

Gansey huffs a laugh. It lacks every variation of humor there is entirely. “Didn’t even go.”

Adam glances at him over his shoulder. Gansey, with his boundless intellect and subtle charm, often appears to be older than his twenty-four years — even to Adam, who knows him fairly well after six semesters of attending the same college classes and secrets shared between them over half-empty bottles of whiskey and greasy takeout. Now, sitting on an old chair in a tiny unlit kitchenette, there’s nothing hinting at endless amounts of wealth and a glitzy future already set in stone.

“What?”

Gansey’s smile is wry. “Can you imagine the scandal?” He lifts a hand to rub his wrist against his cheek and snorts contemptuously. “The President’s son checking into rehab. Huh. Gossip rags would have a field day.”

Adam sets a glass of water down on the table in front of Gansey.

The doorbell saves both of them from trying to find words appropriate for the situation. Adam doubts he could’ve thought of a single one.

Gansey looks up at him, arm outstretched, and gives a little wave with the hand holding his expensive leather wallet. “Would you mind…?”

Adam goes to take delivery of the pizza.

***

Walking through the White House — even when it’s only the part accessible to outsiders during events — feels like a fever dream. There are security guards with steely composures and identical black suits positioned at every corner, men and women looking as affluent as they do farouche. Laughter rings through the air, polite conversations a quieter background noise. An elderly pianist with a round belly and dancing fingers plays a slow piece on a shiny white and undoubtedly unimaginably expensive piano.

Gansey and Adam spend the first half an hour talking to politicians who look at Gansey with fondness softening their eyes and address him as _son_ and _honey_ — people, who Adam only knows from TV and newspaper articles. When the President — a middle-aged man with vibrantly blue eyes and an angular jaw — catches sight of Gansey and gives him a nod in greeting, Adam feels slightly lightheaded and incredibly out of his depth; he begins to fiddle with the hem of his jacket.

“He’s an asshole,” Gansey mutters under his breath, but there’s a charming smile on his lips that doesn't match the uneasiness in his eyes.

“Who, the President?” Adam asks. Theoretically, he knows who Gansey’s talking about, but it feels too absurd to just shrug it off as an offhand comment.

Just as Gansey is opening his mouth to elaborate, a tall man wearing an earpiece walks up to them. “Good evening, Mr. Gansey. Mr. Lynch asks to see you.”

“Agent Grant, nice to see you,” Gansey says, and his expression minimally shifts into something more wary. Adam suspects that if he didn’t know Gansey, he wouldn’t have even noticed the change. “How is he?”

“A maid just brought him some fresh water, sir.”

Gansey accepts that with a faint twitch of the lips, as though he couldn’t quite manage a smile. He looks devastatingly unhappy, but he reaches out to curl his hand around Adam’s shoulder and looks up at Agent Grant. “This is Adam Parrish, a friend of Ronan’s and mine from college.”

Agent Grant flicks his gaze to Adam, assessing. “I’m not sure that Mr. Lynch has ever mentioned your friend, Mr. Gansey.”

Gansey wets his lips to mask a smile. He’s cocked his head and buried his hands in his pants pockets. Adam knows that all of this is just for show; Gansey’s turned on his charm again, and by the way Agent Grant’s shoulders slump just a little bit, he’s won him over already. Adam hopes to God that this only worked because Agent Grant has known Gansey since he was four and has been around ever since.

“Adam’s my friend more than he is Ronan’s. You know how he is with people.”

“Hm,” Agent Grant says. “Well, come on, then.”

They follow Agent Grant down a long corridor decorated with photographs of former presidents, flowers and security cameras. Adam wonders what it must be like, to have to live like this, to grow up like this. He assumes it is, most notably, terribly lonely.

Agent Grant leads them up a well-hidden staircase and down one more corridor until they finally stop in front of a mahogany double-leaf door, guarded by yet another security guard, who takes one look at them before knocking on the wood.

“Mr. Lynch, your friends have arrived.”

The door swings open to reveal a man around their age standing in its frame. He is just as exceedingly handsome as the rest of his family. His eyes are a clear icy blue, his lips thin and pink, his nose a perfect Roman shape. Adam has seen him in magazines or on TV before, but now that he's standing right in front of him, his cheekbones and jaw seem even sharper, but his skin just as unblemished and pale. He’s tall and athletic, although leaner than Gansey; he’s got a runner’s body, or maybe that of a swimmer.

If President Lynch, who Ronan is the spitting image of, ever smiled like his son does now, Adam would’ve accepted Gansey’s remark about him being an asshole without question.

“Gansey!” he exclaims, leaning forward to grab Gansey by the neck and pull him into a tight embrace. Gansey doesn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around him, too. Adam watches his fingers curling, the tips digging into Ronan's back. “How are you doing?”

"'M okay," Gansey mumbles into Ronan's shoulder. "You?"

Ronan's focus has already shifted and is close enough to make him ignore Gansey's question and let go of him, who apparently isn't ready for the loss of proximity judging by the way he takes a moment too long to let go of Ronan's shirt. Ronan doesn't take note of that; his gaze has flitted over to Adam.

"You brought me a friend?"

Adam, unnerved by the brightness in Ronan's eyes, hesitates for a second before taking a step forward to offer him his hand. Again he reminds himself to hide his Southern drawl behind a carefully affected accent.

"Adam Parrish," he offers as Ronan's long, elegant fingers brush his palm. His hand is clammy in Adam's. "I go to college with Gansey."

Ronan raises a dark eyebrow. "Really?" His gaze travels down Adam's body, cataloguing the borrowed suit, the lack of a thousand-dollar wristwatch, the carefully styled dirt-colored hair, his physique molded by manual labor. His expression, when he looks back up at Adam, is sharp and leery. "Must be more than just a fellow student if he brings you here."

Gansey puts a hand on Adam's elbow. "He's one of my closest friends."

Ronan spends a moment just looking between them, before he eventually gives a one-shouldered shrug and walks backwards into his room; it’s large and clean, full of expensive furniture imported from all over the world, a shiny black piano in one corner, a fireplace in another. His bed is huge and unmade, his desk cluttered with music sheets and books. On the coffee table in front of a plushy couch is an apparently untouched bowl of fruit, a full bottle of water, a half-empty glass with red-brown liquid in it.

"Want a drink?"

"No," Gansey says immediately, which makes Ronan laugh.

"You're becoming so predictable." He nods at Adam without so much as looking at him. "What about your friend? Is he a little more fun?"

Adam pushes his hands into his trouser pockets, neck heating up as he bristles at the condescending tone. He tries to imagine what his father would say if he saw where Adam is right now, the group of people he'd been dragged into without fitting in, and comes up with a million different scenarios, all of which involving derision and fists, both slurred and uncoordinated, both hitting the target just where it hurts the most.

"I don't drink," he says evenly.

Ronan cocks his head to the side before bringing the glass filled with something that is definitely not water to his lips. Around its rim, he mumbles, "Figures," before tipping his head back and downing the liquid inside. The line of his jaw is sharp and defined, clean-shaven skin stretching around it.

The pit of Adam's stomach starts feeling heavier. He glances over at Gansey, registers the tight line of his shoulders, and takes a deep breath. It doesn't matter what sorts of assumptions Ronan Lynch comes up with; Adam is here for Gansey.

"Ronan," Gansey reprimands, voice warm. "Be nice." He walks up to him and steals the glass of alcohol. “And what are you doing? I thought you said you were getting better.”

Ronan gives him a look, eyes wide and innocent. It's only now that the dull red in their corners becomes visible. “I am! I haven’t done coke since— well, since.” He quickly glances at Adam before dropping down onto the couch. When he speaks again, his voice is softer, quieter. “I am getting better, Gans.”

"Please don't insult my intelligence," Gansey says, curling his fingers around Ronan's chin to tilt his head into the sunlight; like this, the blue in his eyes looks unnaturally pale. His long eyelashes cast blurry shadows onto his cheekbones. "I know you're high."

Ronan licks his lips to ward off the chemically induced smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "It's just a bit of E."

Adam averts his eyes. It's strange to think that even in an environment like this—where every step Ronan takes is watched by several pairs of eyes and he's always surrounded by at least one member of his personal detail—he has someone to supply him with illegal drugs. Adam wonders how that's possible, and why nobody seems to care enough to do something about it when it's blatantly obvious he is still using after his suicide attempt.

He realizes he must've spaced out when the side of his head gets hit by a balled up piece of paper.

"Hey, Gansey's friend: we're going out for dinner. You like Italian?"

Gansey's sitting on the couch beside Ronan now, the skin around his hazel eyes still tight but the tension in his shoulders has disappeared and he's got one arm pressed up against Ronan's. Adam doesn't presume to understand how this conversation has ended so swiftly, or why Gansey has decided to accept another one of Ronan's jags without consequences.

"You heard what his name is," Gansey complains but Adam waves him off.

"Sure," he says.

Ronan grins, already jumping up. "Let me just grab my jacket." He walks over to a wide door that apparently leads into a walk-in closet. Adam's gaze slides over to Gansey, who's running a shaky hand over his—up to that point, at least—immaculate hair and lets out a deep breath.

"I'm sorry he's being an asshole," he mumbles.

Adam taps his deaf ear. "I've dealt with worse."

Adam didn't mean it as a joke but Gansey seems to take it as one, because his frown deepens considerably and he tries to catch Adam's eye. "Don't joke about that, Adam."

A leather-jacket-clad Ronan returns then, which makes it easier for Adam to noticeably avoid any uncomfortable eye contact and possibly one of Gansey's well-intentioned but truly awkward speeches about self-worth and mental health. Maybe Adam would acknowledge them a little more if he didn't regularly witness Gansey taking on different personas, losing himself in his ever-changing obsessions and refusing to let go of unhealthy relationships.

"Come on, Gans," Ronan says, throwing an arm around Gansey's shoulders. "Marsh always brings me to this really nice Italian restaurant downtown. They have the best cacciucco in town."

Adam has no idea what the hell 'cacciucco' was, but at Gansey's touch to his elbow, he follows behind out of the room, down a few hallways until eventually they found themselves out of the White House and standing in the parking lot in front of a spacious black SUV. It is, like most official state cars, designed to appear inconspicuous, which makes it even more attention-grabbing.

Agent Grant as well as another agent who they haven't met before and the one standing at Ronan's suite's door accompany them as they drive down the dimply-lit streets of D.C., past landmarks and well-kept houses with neat front yards lined by carefully manicured hedges. When Ronan'd said 'downtown', he obviously hadn't meant the part where Adam lived.

"Mr. Lynch," Agent Grant says, handing Ronan his shiny black iPhone, "your older brother sent you a text message."

Ronan rudely rolls his eyes and tosses it onto Gansey's lap. He turns his bored expression on Agent Grant. "You know I don't care."

Agent Grant gives a curt nod. "I have orders from Mr. Lynch to remind you that after what happened in November, you are to report back to him every few hours."

"Fuck him. He's not my father."

"Ronan," Gansey admonishes, then picks up the phone, thumbs already tapping on its display. "I'll let him know you're fine."

"Why stop there?" Ronan snaps. "Text him the restaurant's address too, while you're at it. That way he can come over every twenty minutes to check on me personally. Or send one of his henchmen. That'd be more like him."

Gansey looks like he wants to say something, but in the end he keeps his mouth shut and his eyes on the phone. Adam stares out of the window, the discomfort he'd felt all evening still not having ebbed away, and only glances at Ronan again when he hears the rustle of a calloused palm against fabric.

Ronan's patting the inside of his jacket, obviously looking for something in one of the pockets there, before finding it and producing a small plastic bag containing a few colorful pills. Next to Adam Gansey stiffens, which Ronan either doesn't seem to notice or care about, because a moment later, he's dropped one of the pills onto his tongue and closed his mouth. His throat works around a swallow.

"Is this really necessary?" Gansey asks quietly as Adam's eyes flicker to the Agents and the car's driver, all of whom keep their faces turned away from the illicit drugs being very obviously consumed by the son of the most powerful man in the world. Not for the first time he wonders how the hell something this is possible, if not at least for the fact that Adam is pretty sure the agents would lose their jobs if Ronan died during their shift.

Ronan doesn't react, so Gansey adds, "Because of _Declan_? Come on."

Ronan merely tilts his head back against the backrest, closing his eyes, and Gansey doesn't say anything for the rest of the drive. Adam still doesn't understand that, but he won't get involved in Ronan Lynch's life. He has no reason to. So he watches the omnipresent motley city lights rush past them and reflect off Ronan's pale throat.


End file.
